From the Stars
by Kitsuru
Summary: -Ichihime, AU- All legends have a story behind them... But only the tale of Tanabata has a perverted cow and this much sake! Chapter three: “Yachiru-neechan, you really shouldn’t try to eat people! They might not like it!”
1. First Impressions

Ichigo wasn't a pervert

Ichigo wasn't a pervert. It was an odd statement to begin a story with, but it was true. He never joined Keigo and Chizuru on their 'expeditions,' and swore vehemently that he never would. He had never even seen a naked girl, save for those long gone years when he had helped his mother dress his baby sisters. But to get back on subject; he was in no way, shape, or form perverted.

However, when a completely nude woman comes out of nowhere and you are a straight male—or Chizuru—then you are going to stare. You are going to stare a lot. You are probably going to pay attention to certain body parts that you really shouldn't be paying that much obvious attention to, _especially_ if, like Ichigo, you've never seen them before. And if you don't have any warning, then you're just going to stare more.

And that's why Ichigo, despite not being a pervert, was gaping at the equally shocked, stark naked, dripping wet young woman that had just walked out of the forest.

He stared at her. She stared at him.

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them _breathed_. For one long moment, even the cows that Ichigo was stuck babysitting stopped mooing.

The moment ended with a nearly audible click as what was going on finally registered in both of their minds. The girl shrieked and darted behind a tree. The orange haired cowherd yelped and belatedly covered his eyes. He tried to scramble backwards, forgot that he had been leaning against a tree before this whole mess started, and promptly hit the back of his head on the rough bark.

Forgetting that he wasn't alone, he started using several words that would have caused Yuzu to try and wash his mouth out with soap. As he took his hands away from his eyes to rub his new bump, the girl poked her head out of her hiding place. "Are you alright, Pervert-san?"

"I didn't—I wasn't—" Overwhelmed by his predicament, mind had lost control over his mouth, which apparently had no clue what to do with its newfound freedom. The other teen, looking concerned, took a step towards him, revealing—he quickly clapped his hands back over his eyes. "I'm not!"

"Not what, Pervert-san?" She took another step.

"A pervert!" Ichigo shouted, squeezing his eyes shut to keep from looking through the inevitable gaps in his fingers. "I'm not a pervert! So—please—go back behind the tree—PLEASE!"

"Oh, sorry!" The girl quickly dashed back behind her impromptu shelter, and the strawberry sighed in relief.

"Thanks."

"No problem… um…" She frowned thoughtfully, although he couldn't see her. "…Not-Pervert-san?"

"It's Ichigo," he told her, relieved that she had accepted his denial of perversion. Tatsuki, he knew, would have broken every bone in his body, twice. "Kurosaki Ichigo."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Kurosaki-kun." Despite the circumstances, her words had a ring of sincerity to them. "My name is Inoue Orihime."

"The pleasure is mine, Inoue." Only after the words had left his mouth did he realize how, put into a different context, they might sound. He scrambled for a cover-up. _Distraction, damnit, distraction!_

"Um… where are you from?" Incredibly lame, but incredibly safe. "This is a pretty small village, and I've never seen you around before."

Although, come to think of it, Tatsuki _had_ made a few snide comments over the years about him never being able to remember people…

"I live pretty far away." Orihime informed him, apparently not noticing his panic. He gave a mental sigh of relief.

"Are you here visiting relatives?" Other than him, he couldn't think of anyone with hair as bright as hers, and he was positive that none of the girls had her… assets. "Or something like that?"

"Iie." The girl shook her head, although all he could see was the ends of her hair whipping from one side of the tree to the other. "We wanted to take a bath."

"You…" Ichigo blinked. _Nose, if you start bleeding, you'll regret the day you were attached to my face. _"…Wanted to take a bath."

"Hai!" She nodded.

"And you couldn't bathe back where you live?" He asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically. "Wherever that is?"

"Well, we could have." She admitted. "But Yachiru-neechan was bored, and Rangiku-neechan says that the Milky Way is too cold."

"So you're with your sisters?" He smiled slightly, thinking about Karin and Yuzu. "It's sounds as though…"

The orange-haired cowherd trailed off, frowning slightly. There was something about her last sentence that he was missing; he could feel it. Something important.

It took nearly a full minute of awkward silence for realization to pull a Tatsuki and punch him in the face.

He blinked. "Did you say the Milky Way?"

"Hai!" She gave another cheerful nod.

"As in… _the_ Milky Way?" Ichigo asked carefully. "The one in the sky?"

"That's the one!" She replied.

"I've never heard of an _actual_ river named that." He commented.

"Yes you have." Orihime informed him. "After all, you were just asking me about it."

"What are you talking about?" His head was starting to hurt from trying to understand this strange girl. "The only Milky Way that I know about is the one in the sky!"

"That's it, that's the Milky Way I was talking about!"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…Kurosaki-kun?" The very, _very_ strange girl called out in a tentative voice, poking her head back out from behind her tree. "Did your tongue disappear?"

"…Um… What?"

"Rangiku-neechan says that sometimes humans tongues randomly vanish into thin air, just like all of Kuchiki-dono's big fish and Kira-dono's sake!" (1)

"Riiight…" Ichigo said, slowly blinking at her. "Where did you say you were from again.

She told him.

He lifted one hand to cover of his eyes, and dug the index finger of the other into his ear. "Can you repeat that?"

She did. He started on the other ear, looking slightly perturbed, and asked her to say it one more time. After she had done so—now looking somewhat confused—he sighed.

"I'm sorry," the cowherd said, "I think there's something wrong with my ears. It sounded like you said you were from Heaven."

"Well, it's good to know that the sound warping weasels aren't nearby." She commented. "Because that's what I said."

The silence lasted a _lot_ longer that time.


	2. Second Glances

Disclaimer: If I owned Bleach, would I be writing this?

A/N: I wanted to include this for the first chapter, but, to put it simply, the iPod Touch may be a wonderful, amazing device... but it's also evil. Very, very evil. It kept exiting out of the internet for some reason, and forcing me to reload everything. After an hour, I lost patience and posted it as it was, without even a disclaimer. I'll get around to editing it eventually, though.

The funny thing is, I wasn't even planning on posting this until Tanabata, originally. But I've got no patience, and I really really wanted to have this caught up by the time I went on my other trip (when I posted this, I was out of the country, which is why I was stuck using my iPod Touch). I'll just have to try and post a really good chapter on Tanabata, I guess. :)

Alright, then, onto the important stuff! First of all, as it says in this story's summary, this has also been posted on livejournal. So, if you want to read ahead, feel free to check it out (my username there is Kitsuru as well). This version will catch up eventually, but I'm only posting one chapter here a week until it does. Although if you happen to read it on lj, would you mind still reviewing here?

What's that you said? A shameless review hunter, me? Whatever gave you that idea?

Thanks for reviewing, for everyone who did! I was really surprised at how quickly and how many responses came in. And for those who didn't, thanks for reading anyways, and I hope that you liked it.

The chapters I post here, with the exception of the first one (I'll get around to it sooner or later, I promise!) and the ones I post after this version catches up to the original (I'll do them too, but most likely not until I actually finish this story) will be edited slightly. Not much, for the most part I'll just be getting rid of any grammer errors and such that I notice that I didn't fix last time I posted this.

If you see any errors that I missed, please tell me. I always try to check over what I write, but it's not my strong suit.

Geeze, this is a long author's note. Sorry about that, I'll try to keep it shorter next time.

* * *

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime finally called out, after nearly ten minutes of silence. "Did you lose your tongue again?"

Even if he hadn't been trying to figure out how crazy she was—or possibly how crazy _he_ was—Ichigo would have had trouble coming up with an answer to the strange girls' question. But, under the circumstances, he articulated admirably. "Er…"

"Oh, good, you still have it!" She sounded relieved. "At least, I think you do… don't you? You can't say 'er' without a tongue, right? Er…eh… ah… it doesn't seem like you can, so I guess your tongue didn't vanish after all! Or did it disappear and then get brought back by the taste-bud elves? Yachiru-neechan told me about them!"

"Um…" It was becoming increasingly clear exactly who the crazy person was, out of the two of them. Or at the least the gullible one.

"Yachiru-neechan said that the taste-bud elves and the flavor fairies work together to make the earth a yummier place! Isn't that amazing, Kurosaki-kun?"

The very, _very_ gullible one.

"Uh, yeah, right." Ichigo said hastily. "So… um… if you live up in Heaven, what are you doing here?"

If he found out what she was doing here, then he might find out where she was really from. And if he found out where she was really from, he reasoned, then he could get her back to her sisters. They were probably worried about her—he would have been, in their shoes.

"Taking a bath."

"You already said that." He reminded her, repressing the urge to sigh in exasperation. "What I meant was, what are you doing _here_? You're obviously not bathing anymore."

"Oh, I forgot!" Orihime cried. She leapt out from behind her tree, causing Ichigo to let out a loud yelp and re-cover his eyes. She blinked at him for a moment before remembering why he was so reluctant to look at her, which led to her squeaking and jumping back behind her hiding spot. "Sorry, Kurosaki-kun, I forgot about that too!"

"It's… it's alright." He managed to stammer. Forget worried, her family had probably suffered multiple heart attacks by now. "Just answer the question, okay? Please?"

"Well, you see…" She sounded embarrassed, and he could practically see her blushing all the way down to her—_GAAH! MUST COVER MENTAL EYES, MUST COVER MENTAL EYES DAMNIT!_ "…My sisters sent me to get our clothes."

Clothes. _Clothes_. He sent fervent thanks to every deity that he had ever heard off—and some that he hadn't, but they had to exist _somewhere,_ right?—promising to give them a mountain of offerings the next chance he had. "Where are they?"

"Er…" Rather than embarrassed, her voice had become somewhat nervous. A hand tentatively extended out from behind the tree to point. "I think that they're being eaten by your cow."

Three long seconds passed in silence as Ichigo turned to stare at the contentedly munching bovine. Then, the orange-haired teen let out a low growl. "_Kon…_"

The bull looked over at them; the tattered remains of what had once been an elegant robe hanging from his mouth. He tilted his head, and the cowherd could have sworn that he heard a falsely innocent voice, slightly muffled by the cloth, ask "Who, me?"

No offerings for the gods and goddesses, Ichigo decided. But on the other hand, the Kurosaki family would be having steak in the _very_ near future.

Kon took one look at his face and bolted.

Had it been any other time, the herder would have been impressed by the animals' speed, if not his survival instinct. However, he still had the clothes in his mouth, so Ichigo wasn't inclined to feel anything other than pure, unadulterated fury towards the most annoying member of his herd.

It didn't help that this wasn't the first time that Kon had stolen a woman's clothing. Unfortunately for the bull, Ichigo was going to make sure it would be his last.

--

In the end, he wasn't able to procure steak for his family's dinner. In fact, he never even caught up to Kon—the cow must have been part horse, with how fast he ran. But he _did _manage to get the clothes back. They were ripped, drenched in saliva, and full of holes—but at least he got them back.

That was the important thing, he tried to reassure himself, resolving not to think about what had happened when Kon had gone after Tatsuki's brand new, _very_ expensive kimono.

However, despite the fact that the odd brunette girl seemed much less violent than his childhood friend, the cowherd couldn't help but feel as if he were walking towards certain DOOM. Just because a girl acted harmless didn't mean that she wasn't capable of tearing an innocent bystander like himself limb from limb—even his little sister Yuzu had a breaking point where she grabbed the nearest cooking utensil and ran after the nearest living creature, her eyes glowing red with insane bloodlust. It had only happened once, but the mere memory was enough to make him shudder even now, five years later.

"Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime's voice shook him out of his reverie. He quickly recovered his eyes using his free hand. "Are you alright? You're shivering."

"I'm fine." Ichigo answered. "Just a bit cold, that's all."

"But it's really hot out." She reminded him. "Are you sure that it's not because of the ice dwarves? What if they're working together with the wind witches to give everyone colds and take over the world when everyone's sneezing and stuck in bed?"

He blinked. "Did your sisters tell you that?"

"No." She said proudly. "I figured it out on my own! It makes sense, since—"

"I got your clothes back." He cut in hastily, holding them up. "They're … well, they're not in great shape."

That wasn't the biggest understatement of the millennium. After all, there had to be at least _one _that was bigger…right? RIGHT?!

"Oh, that's okay!" He gaped. A girl who didn't want to kill him for ruining—even though it wasn't really his fault—her clothes? Could it be possible? "I'm good at sewing, so I can fix them!"

"Er…" He uncovered his eyes slightly so that he could glance down at the still-dripping rags in his hand. Obviously, she couldn't see just how bad the damage was. "If you say so."

He re-covered his eyes and turned towards the girl, holding out what was left of her clothing. "Here."

"…Um, Kurosaki-kun?" After a few moments, Orihime spoke gently… from _behind_ him. "You're talking to a tree."

Ichigo hastily turned around. Or tried to, to be specific. He ended up hitting his head on the aforementioned flora.

"Kurosaki-kun!" The only thing that stopped him from using every swear word he knew was the thought of having to explain what they meant to Orihime, who had probably never heard them before. "Are you okay? Did a fuschia forest fairy push you?"

"Um… yeah." He answered, longing to rub the new bump on his head but lacking a free hand to do so with. "Let's go with that."

The orange-haired teen adjusted his course slightly and took a step forward… only to once again find himself having and up close and personal encounter with a tree. A different tree, this time, but a tree all the same.

This time, he _did_ start cursing.

"That's amazing!" Orihime squealed, and Ichigo paled. "I didn't know you could speak Engrish! But I think you mispronounced chickens."

"I wasn't…" He began, and then paused as his common sense managed to kick his mind out of the comatose state that it had been put in by his last head injury. "You know what? Nevermind. Just—here."

The cowherd took a step towards where he had heard the girls' voice coming from, this time waving the hand holding the remains of the robe in front of him to keep from running into anything else. It had sounded like she wasn't too far off—six feet, he reasoned, maybe even ten.

Unfortunately, he soon learned that his calculations were off. By a lot.

He had only taken two steps when he bumped into something warm, soft, and slightly damp. Something that his hand had apparently missed. Something that squeaked and fell backwards when he hit it, taking him along with it. Something with two very large, very soft, and somewhat pillow-like bumps that his head landed on when they hit the ground.

_Well, at least it can't get any worse._ A voice in the back of Ichigo's head commented.

He would forever blame that voice for everything that went wrong in the universe.

Why, do you ask?

Because the second it finished that cursed sentence, something cold and sharp poked the back of the herder's neck. Between that and the lack of available air where his head was currently located, Ichigo realized that he was probably going to die very soon.

"Just what do you think you're doing to our sister?" A feminine voice hissed in his ear.

Two words ran through the orange-haired teen's oxygen-deprived brain. _Oh, crap._


	3. Third Time's the Charm

**Disclaimer:** If I owned Bleach… it wouldn't be anywhere near as amazing. I'm not a genius like Kubo Tite, after all.

**A/N: **I am so, so sorry. I don't even remember why this took so long to get up, as I've had this chapter done since before I even uploaded the story onto FFnet. All this needed was a quick check for spelling and grammar errors, but I kept procrastinating on doing it.

I can't give guarantees that the next update will come sooner, despite that the chapter's done. College has kept me pretty busy so far.

But I managed to get a GPA of 3.2 for my first semester, which meant that I got to prove my cousin wrong in her claim that public school graduates go down a full grade point during their freshman year of college.

Hopefully, this chapter makes up for it a bit… it's one of my favorites, if only because of all of the characters that I get to introduce in it. Hopefully, you'll all like it even more than I did… especially **copperheadedfightingninja**, who reminded me that this story was sitting here collecting dust.

Thanks also to everyone else who waited for this story to be updated, and to those who reviewed: **Mortimerscross, ****lover1487,and LuminousWeb. **

Happy belated holidays, everyone, and happy early New Year!

* * *

"Um… Soi-fon-neechan?" Orihime asked tentatively. "Please don't kill Kurosaki-kun."

"So that's how it is." Another voice piped up, rife with mischief. "Kurosaki-_kun_, huh?"

Ichigo tried to say something, _anything_, in his defense, but it was muffled by the location of his face.

"Be quiet, human." Soi-fon snarled, twisting the sword slightly, then, in a louder voice, "and Orihime, just be a good little damsel in distress and wait for your sisters to save you from this… this… _man_."

"But—"

"I'm not—"

"Methinks they doth protest too much." The unknown speaker commented with a giggle. "Well, he _is_ kind of cute… I think. It's hard to tell, with his face being where it is, but judging from those muscles… _nice_ catch, Orihime-chan!"

"R-Rangiku-neechan!" The caramel-haired girl squeaked, blushing heavily.

"Rangiku …" Soi-fon growled in a far different tone. Her blade pressed a little harder against her captives' neck and Ichigo held his breath, resisting the urge to gulp.

"Have you tried getting him drunk yet?"

"Rangiku!" The warning tone became a scandalized one.

"What?" The buxom blonde sounded genuinely confused, but all one had to do was glance at her eyes to see that spark of mischief. "Sake makes everything better, especially—aw, would you look at that? The back of his neck is all red, and so is her face… they look like giant, human-shaped tomatoes!"

The eldest sisters' eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Or blood."

"Come on, Soi-fon-neechan, stop teasing the boy. Killing doesn't solve anything, and it's so messy!"

"It's only messy if it's done incorrectly." The psychopathic—in Ichigo's opinion, although there were a great many who would eagerly agree with him were it not for their self-preservation instincts—woman sniffed. "Just ask Rukia-chan or Yachiru-neesan, they'd tell you the same thing."

"Rukia-chan's a kidou specialist and Neechan spends all day riding around on Zaraki Kenpachi's shoulder while he kills people _messily_, so they don't count." Rangiku said firmly. "Come on, if we get him drunk enough, he'll think it was just a dream." She smirked. "A very good dream." Her expression began to resemble that of a shark. "And hey, if he's lucky, I may even be in it. How'd you like to get up close and personal with Matsumoto Rangiku, cutie?"

"Rangiku-neechan…" Orihime began, a strange look on her face.

"Apparently, he doesn't like it too much." Soi-fon cut the youngest sister off in a wry tone, eying the pallor her prisoners' face had taken on.

"That's only because he can't breathe, Soi-fon-neechan. He needs to relax, too, and I've got just the thing to help him do it!"

"You think that sake solves everything." The other woman muttered, shifting her grip on her blade so that she could turn to glare at her younger sister. Ichigo seized the opportunity to come up for air.

"That's because it does." The blonde informed her. "Now let them up, I'm sure that Kurosaki-kun's smart enough not to run away."

Ichigo nodded frantically, and reaffirmed his earlier pledge to offer up everything he owned to the god's. Assuming, of course, that he got out of this mess before getting killed by the crazy lady with the sword.

Or worse.

Hearing Rangiku's undeniably evil chuckling, he couldn't help but feel terrified out of his wits—er, _slightly perturbed_. Yeah, that sounded better, less like something that Ishida and Tatsuki would never let him live down and more like something that would earn him a sidelong glance with a raised eyebrow and a snide comment about him actually knowing that word.

He really _hated_ that guy sometimes, even if they were friends. Stupid, stuck up, prissy jerk who insisted on being the smartest guy around… wait, why was his back suddenly lighter? And where had the sword at his neck gone?

"There you go, sweetie." Rangiku crooned as Soi-Fon reluctantly took a step back. "Now, let's just sit down and have some sake while we talk things over. I'm sure we can… is he running away?" She blinked. "Now _that's_ rude."

"Wow, look at how fast Kurosaki-kun is!" Orihime commented. "He's even faster than Soi-fon-neechan!"

"I wouldn't be so sure about that." The dark-haired woman growled, starting after the fleeing teen. However, a hand on her shoulder made her pause. "What is it _now_, Rangiku?"

"There's no need for you to go after him, neechan." The blonde informed her cheerfully. "After all, he's heading right for—"

Several high-pitched, feminine shrieks cut through the relative quiet, followed by a far deeper voice alternately cursing and apologizing.

"—Our other sisters." Rangiku finished with a villainous smirk.

"PERVERT!" Despite the distance, they could hear the shouting quite clearly.

"NO, I'M—GAAH! GET OFF! MY HEAD'S NOT EDIBLE!"

"I COULD BITE HIS HEAD BETTER THAN THAT!"

"Um… Kiyone… Sentaro's not here…"

"I KNOW THAT, ISANE-NEECHAN! I'M JUST PRACTICING!"

"OW! PERVERT-KUN THREW ME OFF!"

"FOR THE LAST TIME, I'M NOT—"

"BAKUDOU NO ICHI: SAI!"

"Well," Rangiku began after the screaming had stopped. "It sounds like they're having fun, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it does!" Orihime agreed. Soi-fon stared at them, wondering—not for the first time—if she had been switched at birth.

* * *

"I say we kill him." Rukia declared without preamble.

"Seconded." Soi-fon concurred quickly.

"Thirded." Kiyone said.

"Fine, kill me!" Ichigo yelled. Due to Rukia's kidou, he was unable to move, and had begun to wonder if there was actually some truth to what Orihime had told him earlier about her being from heaven. At the very least, her sisters—who had gotten dressed, thankfully—could _not_ be human. "But get this _thing_ off my head first!"

"I don't recall giving you permission to breathe, human, much less sully our ears with your babbling." The crazy dark-haired midget woman with the rings at the end of her hair snapped. "And refer to Yachiru-oneesan with the proper respect!"

"Oneesan?" He echoed. There was a giggle in his ear, and he turned his head just in time to see the pink blur jump to his other shoulder. "There's no way she's your older sister. She can't be more than five years old!"

"I'm way older than that!" Yachiru argued.

"Six, then."

"Older than that, too."

"Seven?"

"Keep going."

"…Eight?"

"Silly! I'm… um…" She frowned, and started counting on her hands. "One… three… seven…" She jumped down from his shoulder and took off her shoes. "…Eleven… fifteen…"

"Look, can't we just pretend that none of this ever happened?" Ichigo asked the other three pleadingly.

"No!" They growled in unison.

"I got it!" Yachiru jumped back onto his head. "I'm one hundred and eighty three years old!"

"… No. You're not." The cowherd told her, sweatdropping.

Orihime was wrong, he decided. There was no way that these four were from heaven, although a place somewhat lower than that was a distinct possibility.

"Yes, I am." The little girl retorted. "Just ask my imouto's!"

"They're not your little sisters. They're probably not even related to you!" Ichigo argued. "You don't even look like each other, and you have different last names!"

"How dare you question our ways, puny mortal!" Soi-fon roared, leaping to her feet and glaring down at the captive. Rukia and Kiyone chorused agreement as they joined her, and the little pink-haired demon started chewing on his head. Again.

"Puny?" The orange-haired teen repeated incredulously. "I'm taller than the four of you midgets combined!"

"…WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"

"It looks like they're getting along great, doesn't it Isane-chan?" Rangiku commented. Isane choked on her mouthful of tea.

"Are you sure?" Orihime asked nervously, putting down her cup. "Soi-fon-neechan just drew her sword…"

"Don't worry, Rukia-chan's stopping her, see?"

"Oh Ruler," Rukia intoned, "mask of blood and flesh, all things in the universe—"

"On second thought, Orihime-chan, you may have a point." The blonde amended hastily. "Oi, Rukia-chan!"

Halfway through the incantation, the dark-haired girl faltered and lost her hold on the energy. Kiyone paled. "Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh?" Ichigo repeated, frowning slightly. "What's… hey, where are you all go—"

**BOOM!**

"—ing?"

The cowherd blinked dazedly at the newly formed clearing—or to be honest, crater. It was hard to see through all of the smoke, although he was able to make out that all of the trees that had been there three seconds previously had somehow vanished. It smelled like something was burning, and he hoped that it wasn't him.

"What the heck…?" He muttered, before becoming acutely away of a pain in his head. "GET OFF! WHAT ARE YOU, A BULLDOG?!"

"Wai'm Yafee'oo!" The deceptively tiny monster replied through a mouthful of orange hair.

"JUST GET OFF ALREADY!"

"Neh wa'! 'E'uh-'oon!"

Somehow, Ichigo managed to translate her words into something resembling understandable Japanese. "I'M NOT A PERVERT, DAMMIT!"

"Su'uh 'E'uh-oon!"

"I'M NOT A SUPER PERVERT EITHER!"

And that was the scene that the rest of Yachiru's crazy family found when they managed to pick their way through the rubble left by Rukia's botched kidou. At first, all that they could do was watch, stupefied, as the teen ran around trying to get their older sister off.

"How did he survive?" Isane wondered, gaping at the miraculously unharmed—if slightly singed and badly bitten—cowherd.

"Who cares?" Soi-fon asked. There was an excited, even eager gleam in her eyes. "This just means I get to kill him myself!"

"Hey, I wanted to kill him!" Rukia protested.

"And I wanted to kill him more!" Argued Kiyone.

"Too bad, I saw him first!" The eldest of the trio said smugly. "Well, second. Right Orihime?"

She blinked. The spot next to her, where she had been directing the last few words, was surprisingly empty. "Orihime?"

"Kurosaki-kun, hold on!" There was a sweatdropping and exasperated sighing session as the five women watched their youngest sister chase the straight man and crazy demon-child comedy duo. "Yachiru-neechan, you really shouldn't try to eat people! They might not like it!"

"Mmf?"

"I know, it's strange, but some people really _do_ feel that way. So can you please—oh no, Yachiru-neechan, please don't bite down harder! Kurosaki-kun, I'm sorry, I'll get her to let go!"

"Aw…" Rangiku grinned. "Isn't that adorable?"

"So what?" Rukia asked with a scowl. "I'm still killing him."

"No, I'm killing him!" Kiyone told her.

"I'm better at kidou!"

"You almost blew us all up a minute ago!"

"Only because Rangiku-neechan distracted me!"

"Well, I'm older!"

"So what? I'm—"

"I'm older than the both of you!" Soi-fon shouted at them both. They 'eep'ed and promptly dove for cover behind Isane, who turned her head to look at them with a sigh. "I'm killing him, and that's final!"

"Who says we have to kill him?"

For one long moment, Rukia and Kiyone stopped whimpering, Soi-fon stopped snarling, and they joined Isane in gaping at Rangiku. The blonde was grinning in that half-smug, half-evil way that sent a chill of fear down their spines.

"No." Soi-fon said immediately.

"What?" Rangiku blinked. "But I haven't even told you what my idea is yet!"

"You don't have to." The dark-haired woman told her. "I can already told you that it will never work, and will probably end with all of us hung over and the area around us destroyed and on fire."

"You say that about all of my plans!"

"That's because they're all the same." Kiyone reminded her. "All you ever come up with is for us to get drunk. Really, _really_ drunk. And both times that we actually listened to you, we woke up the next day in weird places with really bad hangovers and most of our clothes missing."

"Exactly!" Matsumoto said, grinning and giving her sisters a thumbs-up sign. "But this one has a twist!"

"What kind of twist?" Soi-fon was suspicious, but also curious.

"Well, you know how now that he's seen Orihime naked he's dishonored her, right?"

"Right…" Isane nodded.

"That's why he has to be killed." Rukia snarled.

"Well, killing him isn't the only way to restore her honor, you know," Rangiku pointed out, "even if it _is_ the therapeutic way."

"What are you…No. No, no, no, NO." Realization had come to Soi-fon first. "Not even you are crazy enough to think of what I think you're thinking of. And on the off-chance that you _are_ that crazy, than actually stop and try to think past your constant drunken haze and see just how insane, foolish, and idiotic what you're thinking of is and stop thinking of—"

The well-endowed blonde pulled a bottle of sake seemingly out of nowhere. It took less than a minute for her to turn her deadly, determined older sister into a giggling, stumbling drunkard slurring something about 'pwiddy black kittiesh, wuv yoo Yoruiji-shama' and giggling.

"Anyone else not like my plan?" Rangiku asked sweetly, taking out several more bottles.

"Um… Rangiku-neechan…" Isane began, eying the alcohol nervously. "…What _is_ the plan?"

"Huh? I didn't tell you?" Apparently, she had dipped into her own stash of sake while her sisters weren't looking.

The three sober women shook their heads.

"Well, who can see a girl naked who isn't also a girl?"

"Her dad?"

"Think younger, and not blood-related."

Three seconds passed in silence.

"No. No, no, no way—"

"Yes way!" Rangiku declared cheerfully after she had forced Rukia into a state of intoxication so great that she was hugging Soi-fon, who was hugging her back. They were squealing about 'teeny bunny wunnysh' and 'Yoru—hic!—iji-shama.'

"Not to sound like I don't support the plan or anything…" Kiyone was eying the pair nervously. Competitive she may have been, but she was also quite intelligent. "Because I do, I definitely do, I don't need to be drunk or anything! But he's seen you naked too. And Soi-fon-neechan."

"Yes, but I'm _me_." The blonde said. "And Soi-fon-neechan already wants to kill him."

Put that way, it almost made sense.

"Besides, they make such a cute couple, don't you agree?" Rangiku pointed, and the sober duo turned towards the youths in the question.

During the ten seconds that they watched, Yachiru managed to cover Ichigo's eyes, and, since he couldn't see where he was going, he ended up running right into Orihime the next time he turned around. Their heads collided and Ichigo toppled to the ground, clutching at the large bump he now had while Orihime frantically apologized and fretted over him. He looked up at her, his mouth half-open to tell her that he was fine, realized that she was still stark naked, let out a strangled yelp, re-covered his eyes, and started to dash away from her for some semblance of a safe haven while she did the same thing, only covering different body parts.

Yachiru, who had escaped being crushed between their heads by jumping to safety at the last possible second, watched and giggled for a few seconds before going back to torturing the orange-haired teen and causing the whole mess to start all over again.

"See?" Rangiku asked. "They're perfect together!"

"Okay, screw hangovers, I _need_ to be drunk." Kiyone declared, grabbing the sake bottles from the older blonde. Isane just groaned.

"This won't end well, will it?" She asked in a resigned voice.

"Probably not."

* * *

**A/N: **Those of you who know the Tanabata legend probably have a pretty good idea of what Matsumoto's planning. But I still hope I can manage to put a twist or two on it to surprise you anyways. :)

Here's a bit from the next chapter, for those of you who haven't already read it on my lj.

"_YAMA-JII AND ICHI-NII AND EVERYONE ELSE, BREAKFAST IS READY!"_

"_Karin…" Ichigo began in a half-agonized, half-horrified whisper. "Made… breakfast?"_

_Karin _never_ cooked. It wasn't that she was bad at it or anything like that; it was simply that she _didn't_ cook. It just wasn't something she did._

_Karin would only cook, in her own words, if the world were ending and Yuzu had lost all sense of taste and memory of her past ventures in the kitchen. He looked out the window, and, failing to see any fire or hear any screaming, wondered what the heck was going on._

"_Not all by herself, of course!" Isshin replied cheerfully. "You didn't expect Yuzu to cook for all of our guests on her own, did you?"_

_The strawberry nodded thoughtfully, his hands still clamped over his ears. "That actually makes… wait." He blinked. "Guests? What guests?"_

"_FOOD!" The all-too familiar—and painfully high-pitched and _noisy_ and oh kami-sama, what had he done to deserve this torture?—squealing was the only warning Ichigo had before a pink blur stampeded past his open door. LOUDLY. "CANDYCANDYCANDYYAAAAAAAAAAY!"_

"_Wait up, Neechan!" A taller, blonder bolt of lightning darted after the blur. "I want more sake!"_

Remember, all reviews go to feed starving artists. Constructive criticism in particular makes them a good meal, while flames are used to keep them warm during the winter. Thank you in advance.


End file.
